Archives For niebuhr

You should catch up on Part One and Part Two.

These questions begged a much bigger one:

Could the Church be involved in politics at all?

Here we were, responding to a jihad by declaring a crusade. I began to wonder how any of the words that Jesus ever said, especially in key teachings of the Sermon on the Mount that could warrant even the most just war.  Moreover, could a Christian even be an American (or a Brit or Afghani or Brazilian)?  What if we went beyond politics to lifestyles?  Could a Christian pursue the American dream?  Buy products produced unethically?  Eat food slaughtered violently or grown in a way that endangers the environment?  Prize safety and good neighborhoods over proximity to the poor?

These are questions I still struggle with today.  On one hand, I believe that there is value in cultural engagement.  The church cannot abandon culture.  Yet history and experience teach us that in our attempts at relevance, we quickly take up the morays of the culture, and become something much less than the Church.

The Anabaptist movement, for centuries, has stood for unpopular things.  They were martyred for their belief that an adult chooses their faith, not their family or the State.  Even today, their mennonite and amish and christoanarchist descendants fight against the constant creep of civic religion. During Vietnam, Mennonite Conscientious Objectors were sent to staff psychiatric hospitals.  Their humanizing treatment of the mentally ill has led to many advances in patient care.

When I asked an mennonite preacher what their hermeneutic was, he responded “The Sermon on the Mount.”  As a person wanting to live like Christ in the midst of the longest war in American history, their way of life just makes sense.

My dream is to be a part of a community shaped by the story and teachings of Christ.  The Church does this both in spite of the world, and simultaneously for the world.  This may mean abandoning the comfort and structures that America has to offer, and living as a stranger in one’s own land.  It may be that this countercultural, underground radical community grounded in obedience to the teachings of Christ is the best hope of us, our churches, and our neighborhood. We can thank Osama bin Ladin for teaching us.

Part 3

I have never understood how the Church and the Republican Party became synonymous.  The Religious Right was nothing new, but it seemed like the culture wars reached a new high during the 2000 election.  I often felt alone when I tried to explain why I believe that single issue voting does not make you a better follower of Jesus.  The blurred lines between pop-Christianity and the Bush administration, as well as the enormous flag greeting us every morning, the imminent wars produced a new message: Being a good Christian meant supporting your country in war.

This began to churn something inside me.  I could see why understand dismantling Afghanistan, but chasing WMDs in Iraq was harder.  It seemed that whenever such concerns being voiced, it resulted in one’s patriotism, and likewise their faith, being called into question.

My graduate studies in theology began in the midst of the 2004 election.  There were wars of two fronts.  About the time John Kerry was being demonized for his participation in anti-war protests, I was taking an ethics class.

We read Reinhold Neibuhr, the father of modern Just War theory.  Then we read Stanley Hauerwas’ The Peaceable Kingdom. For the first time I encountered a way of being the church, in the midst of a war torn world, that seemed completely in line with the way of Jesus.

This wasn’t about individual morality or proper ecclesiological structure.  It was a vision that

the church existed to stand with, and alongside the lost world,

as an inviting example

of what the universe would look like when the Kingdom of God was complete.

This was a different way to answer the questions that had flared up since bin Ladin had interrupted our lives.  What if, instead of railing against the prevailing culture, we lived lives that showed how it was lacking? We could respond to abortion by setting an example in adoption.  We could respond to marriage and sexuality discussions by working on our own marriages and standing in contrast to the American divorce epidemic.  We could respond to violence by addressing the root issues of hatred and inequity.

This question begged a much bigger one:

Could the Church be involved in politics at all?